Galaxy Triplex
7000 Boulevard East,
Guttenberg,
NJ
07093
7000 Boulevard East,
Guttenberg,
NJ
07093
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Opened September 30th, 1977. Grand opening ad posted.
Sorry to hear of yet another classic theater’s closing. Just watched “Oil and Water” http://imdb.com/title/tt0907656/ which had a scene filmed here.
Sadly, tonight held the last performances at the Galaxy Triplex. Newspaper story here:
“At the end of this one, the movie theater dies"
Thursday, January 11, 2007, By CHARLES HACK – JERSEY JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
GUTTENBERG – The organist for the Galaxy Triplex on Kennedy Boulevard will be playing the movie theater’s swan song tonight. Organist Jeff Barker will play the cinema’s vintage Kimball theater pipe organ for the last time.
A tightening real estate market is forcing the theater, which has been selling its tickets for $5, out of business, said Nelson Page, the owner of Galaxy Theatre Corporation.
“It been there for 20 years,” Page said. “It was such a local institution and it is a shame to see it go.”
Galaxy Mall owner Martin Sergi said that the theater is a victim of flagging attendance – a trend in the industry.
“Unfortunately, the neighborhood theater is more behind us than ahead of us,” Sergi said. “We supported it for as long as possible, but we couldn’t do it any longer.” The 17,000-square-foot theater will be converted to offices, he said.
Page said the theater had been doing a steady business over the last five years – with up to 80,000 people attending each year – but its lease was up and he could not pay what the owner wanted.
He said there are no plans to close his other five theaters.
The cinema is in the Galaxy Towers condo complex, where a four-alarm blaze in early December swept through a 10th-floor apartment, killing the 32-year-old daughter of the pilot whose plane was hijacked on 9/11 and was crashed into the Pentagon.
Tonight’s features: Charlotte’s Web (G) 7:10 p.m., Eragon (PG) 7 p.m., and Rocky Balboa (PG) 7:15 p.m.
Page said the organ will be moved to another theater, but he hasn’t decided which one.
© 2007 The Jersey Journal
Link: View link
Updated home page link:
http://www.bigscreenclassics.com/galaxy.htm
Extracted from this article:
The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), Feb 28, 1997 p018
Theater goes the neighborhood; As movie multiplexes become megaplexes, it’s nice to know the Bijou is just around the corner. (TICKET)
The Galaxy Movie Theatre, 7000 Boulevard East Guttenberg (201) 854-6540
By Carrie Stetler
At first glance, the Galaxy Movie Theatre in Guttenberg could pass for a multiplex. It has three screens and it’s located in a towering mall and condominium complex.
But no multiplex would show a Disney release, a foreign film and a silent movie all on the same night. And no multiplex has a 1927 Kimball pipe organ in one theater and a Moller organ in the lobby. But what really makes it different from a multiplex is that tickets are only $4 to any show.
Once you step inside the Galaxy’s red-carpeted lobby, decorated with mirrors, chandeliers and old B-movie posters, you feel as if you’re in an old moviehouse that’s been remodeled. But the Galaxy opened 15 years ago – though back then, it only had one screen. In 1990, after it was put under new management, the one screen was subdivided into three. The largest theater at the Galaxy, owned by Nelson Page, has 250 seats. Two smaller ones have 100 seats each.
The Galaxy shows a mix of “intermediate run” movies, meaning films that have opened elsewhere a few weeks earlier, art house pictures and restorations of older films. Each year, it shows silent films once a month, beginning in April and ending with a Halloween screening of “The Phantom of the Opera.”
Music for the silent films is supplied by organist Jeff Barker, who plays the Kimball before the 7 and 9 p.m. shows on the weekend and the Moller on Sundays before the matinees.
Parking, on the seventh floor of the condominium garage, is free.
This cinema is part of the Nelson Page cinema chain that operates in NJ and NY. Page is a real showman and has organ music prior to the shows. He books new features and occasional classics.
One of the theaters in the Galaxy triplex has a large silver screen with curtains and 600 seats. It’s a nice house that gives impressive presentations. The silver screen was installed to premiere my 3-D feature, “Run for Cover” in 1995.
The theater also appears in the climax of my 2001 film, “Unsavory Characters”. As an inside joke, the cinema is playing my previous
film, “Run for Cover” and the patrons are wearing the 3-D glasses during the shoot out.
Jeffrey Barker is the organist who performs before the shows. He also plays at Nelson Page’s restored movie palace, The Lafayette which is the best cinema in New York State.
I must beg to differ with Ross as to this theatre being the only one “east of the Mississippi” to have a regular SILENT film series. Starting in 2002, the ORIENTAL in Milwaukee began a monthly series of films under the title: “Silents Please” as sponsored by the local Kimball Theatre Organ Society, on the ORIENTAL’S three manual, 39-rank (voice) organ of 1930.
It is also interesting to note that this is one of only three remaining theatres having organs in their lobbies, the others being the FOX theatres in Detroit and St. Louis.